Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Broughton Hospital
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|Title= Spencer State Hospital
|Image= Brosh.jpg
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|Image= SpencerSH_02_Modified.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= In 1850, Dorothea Dix persuaded the General Assembly to appropriate money for a state-run psychiatric hospital in Raleigh. By 1875, an estimated 700 North Carolinians were classified as “insane” and not receiving proper care. One hospital thus proved insufficient to meet the needs of the State’s mentally ill. Therefore, on March 20, 1875, the General Assembly voted to provide $75,000 to establish a second state hospital. Four western North Carolina cities, Statesville, Hickory, Asheville, and Morganton, competed to become the home for the institution that was to be known in its early years as the Western North Carolina Insane Asylum. Morganton was selected.
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|Body= The state's Second Hospital for the Insane was opened on July 18, 1893. At the time of the opening, 54 patients were admitted to the new facility. By 1899 the number of patients had increased to 389 and by 1910 to 696. Some of the disorders patients were admitted for were alcoholic excess, overwork, senility, hereditary insanity, worry, ill health, head injuries, syphilis, epilepsy, paralysis, morphia, cocaine use, cholera, disease of the uterus, pneumonia, bereavement, typhoid fever, tuberculosis and childbed fever.
  
Gifts and purchases resulted in 263 acres being acquired by the State in 1875. Work began almost immediately. As an economy measure, 50 convicts were released from penitentiaries and brought to Morganton to help make bricks for the hospital’s first building. The brick contractor was responsible for the feeding, safekeeping, and return of the convicts. Realizing that the building under construction would not provide adequate space and due to insufficient funding to expand its size, the General Assembly appropriated an additional $60,000 in 1877 for another wing. Five years later, in December 1882, the Avery Building and its south wing were completed. Dr. Patrick Livingston Murphy was hired as the first superintendent, a position in which he served for 25 years. [[Broughton Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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For the first ten years the open door system was used. No doors were locked and some doors were even removed. This system was considered a success. Even though this open door system was very successful a fence was erected around the hospital to separate the patients from the town. Many of the patients were able to work. They worked in the kitchen, laundry, sewing rooms, lawns, gardens and on the farm. The 15 acres of farm and woodlands were used for grazing of a fine dairy herd, fattening hogs, and raising poultry, as well as, supporting large gardens. The gardens produced enough to feed patients and staff during summer, with extra vegetables and canned goods for the winter.
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In the early 1920's the name of the institution was changed to the Spencer State Hospital. In 1937 a five bed hospital clinic was added. By 1941, reports show that over 9,000 persons had been treated there. Many persons without families lived most of their lives in the institution and were buried in unmarked graves. Many of the patients were not mentally ill. Among those were elderly persons and unwanted children. In 1950, a staff of three doctors and 150 psychiatric aides were caring for 1,200 patients.   [[Spencer State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:25, 24 September 2023

Featured Article Of The Week

Spencer State Hospital


SpencerSH 02 Modified.jpg

The state's Second Hospital for the Insane was opened on July 18, 1893. At the time of the opening, 54 patients were admitted to the new facility. By 1899 the number of patients had increased to 389 and by 1910 to 696. Some of the disorders patients were admitted for were alcoholic excess, overwork, senility, hereditary insanity, worry, ill health, head injuries, syphilis, epilepsy, paralysis, morphia, cocaine use, cholera, disease of the uterus, pneumonia, bereavement, typhoid fever, tuberculosis and childbed fever.

For the first ten years the open door system was used. No doors were locked and some doors were even removed. This system was considered a success. Even though this open door system was very successful a fence was erected around the hospital to separate the patients from the town. Many of the patients were able to work. They worked in the kitchen, laundry, sewing rooms, lawns, gardens and on the farm. The 15 acres of farm and woodlands were used for grazing of a fine dairy herd, fattening hogs, and raising poultry, as well as, supporting large gardens. The gardens produced enough to feed patients and staff during summer, with extra vegetables and canned goods for the winter.

In the early 1920's the name of the institution was changed to the Spencer State Hospital. In 1937 a five bed hospital clinic was added. By 1941, reports show that over 9,000 persons had been treated there. Many persons without families lived most of their lives in the institution and were buried in unmarked graves. Many of the patients were not mentally ill. Among those were elderly persons and unwanted children. In 1950, a staff of three doctors and 150 psychiatric aides were caring for 1,200 patients. Click here for more...